The present invention relates generally to material used in the production of apparel and more particularly to protective material used in the production of gloves, leggings, aprons and the like, and to methods for producing this protective material.
A cut-resistant material has been developed for use in the manufacture of apparel, such as gloves, sleeves, leggings or aprons, worn by people engaged in meat-cutting operations, for example. This material is composed of woven or knitted intermeshing strands composed of aramid fiber (see Byrnes U.S. Pat. No. 3,883,898) or of an aramid fiber or other fiber exterior encapsulating a spine composed of metallic wire such as stainless steel.
The machinery on which this cut-resistant material is woven or knitted produces a relatively coarse knit, and the pores or openings defined by the intermeshing strands are sufficiently large to permit the passage therethrough of liquids or of sharp pointed objects. Thus, a person wearing an article of apparel composed of this material is not protected from reactive liquids or sharp pointed objects. Moreover, the cut-resistant material is relatively slippery and permits objects grasped by a person wearing gloves composed of this cut-resistant material to slip through the grasp of that person.
Open pores and slipperiness are drawbacks not present in apparel made from rubber or other elastomeric material. Therefore, attempts have been made to apply a coating of rubber on the exterior of the item of apparel composed of the cut-resistant material, but the fiber of which this material is composed does not readily bond to the rubber.
A conventional procedure for coating articles with elastomeric material is to dip the article into a bath of liquid elastomeric material (see Hart et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,218,779). However, when the article of apparel composed of said cut-resistant material is dipped into liquid elastomeric material, the liquid elastomeric material drops through the large pores between the intermeshing strands of the cut-resistant material and leaves holes in the rubber coating on the cut-resistant material.